What I deserve

My friend is actually much better now. She's off all her meds. She's still growing her hair back out after the chemo. She's really vain about that. But I can't blame her. The girl she helped is actually planning her wedding around the day my friend's hair is long enough for the wedding pictures. Not to mention she's back to running 5 miles a day. She's actually doing better now than before the chemo. Everyday she would listen to "Fight Song" by Rachel Platten. It became her theme song. She's play it over and over and over, when ever she felt like giving in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo1VInw-SKc The next thing she wants to do is to volunteer at children's hospitals, and help encourage kids that have to go through cancer treatment too. No matter what life throws at you. You can turn it around if you try. She's proof. So don't give up.

Hey, Usagi, I wanted to let you know you're not alone. I struggle with depression and anxiety, too. I often feel like I just want to disappear or fade away. There are days I want to go to sleep and never wake up or crawl into a hole in the ground and never come out. I've come really close to killing myself many times. I fall into downward spirals, where every thought is worse than the last and I can't stop them. I'm never not thinking and the noise in my head can get incredibly loud. It's terrible not being able to shut it off. I know exactly what you mean when you say you feel like you somehow deserve less or that things would be better without you around because I have those same intrusive, ugly, unwanted thoughts. The last time I made a serious attempt on my life was this past new year's day. I felt very...numb, I guess? After all the crying and screaming and pain, I was just exhausted and it was like I couldn't possibly feel anything more. It was like being in a trance. Then suddenly, I got a phone call from a friend. As soon as the phone rang, it was like my surroundings kind of came back into focus. I looked back and forth between my cell phone and what was in front of me so many times before picking up. But when I did, I heard her voice on the other line and even though she wasn't saying anything out of the ordinary, it was somehow incredibly soothing just hearing her voice. It was like blood and life was rushing back to my extremities, like I had been under anesthesia and was becoming alert and awake. I have lots of people I hang out with but very few people I'd call special. Honestly, though, I've learned that having one friend is very different than having no friends. One friend is plenty. She, of course, had no idea about what I was doing but she invited me over to her house for New Year's dinner with her family. In the back of my mind, I decided quickly to fake cheerfulness because I realized I didn't want her to know what I had almost done. I told her I'd be over right away. I threw on some nice clothes and hastily fixed my face and went right over. It was a typical holiday dinner, everyone was really nice. None of them could possibly have known that twenty minutes prior, I was ready to die. So I sat there, smiling and making jokes and conversations with her family, and I looked at her and I suddenly thought, "If I had gone through with it, she would always remember this day as the day her best friend killed herself. She'll always think about what she could have done to stop me, about how she was having dinner with her family while just a few blocks down the road, I was lying dead in my apartment." I still feel all the bad feelings and have the intrusive thoughts. Just today, I had a panic attack at a restaurant because I couldn't decide on what to order and it literally made me cry huge, fat tears. Mental illness doesn't go away just because you "try harder" and you can't just "decide to get better". But I know now that if I kill myself, it won't get rid of the pain, it will just pass it on to someone else. I mean, I'm pretty sure they'd have to put my mom in one of those rubber rooms if I were to die and my dad can barely handle it when one of our cats passes away from old age so I can't imagine how badly he would take it. Of course, you should want to get better for your own sake and not just other people and that's something I'm trying to work on myself but if anything, wanting to get better for my friends and family is keeping me alive. Now, whenever I see the edge of that downward spiral, I find a way to surround myself with other people. It's kind of just a mental health band aid, but it's a start. I think it's good that you're talking with people about how you're feeling and it's great that you have access to medication and therapy. I know it's super cheesy and not very helpful, but I want to tell you to hang in there and keep fighting because you can beat this and I'm sending good thoughts out into the universe for you.

@usagi I know I am new here, but I will share my story with you if it helps. When I was 13 years old, after struggling with Major Depression for a few years, I tried to hang myself. Nobody seemed to understand what I was going through, I had a decent childhood with loving parents, we weren't rich, but we weren't destitute either. I was a good student and had a great older brother looking out for me. The problem was I didn't know how to communicate what I was feeling, because I didn't fully understand it either. So one day I attempted to hang myself. Clearly it didn't work out. I am forever thankful that I failed. I continued to have depression and what my doctor calls "intrusive thoughts or imagery." Now however, my family knew there was a problem. They still didn't understand it, but there was "something wrong with me." I saw many therapists, was on many different medications, and through an accidental overdose of an anti anxiety drug at work (when I was 20, so at this point in the story I've been fighting the good fight for about seven years) I was placed in a facility at the big hospital nearby. I spent a week there, being told when to eat, being told to be "more open" in group, being told to stop pulling my hair out, being told when to sleep. That week felt like an eternity. I lost my job after that. My parents got divorced when I was 23, because my Dad cheated on my Mom with a 24 year old employee that worked for him. He lost his job, I lost my health insurance, I was unable to afford my medication anymore. I sold everything I had and moved to Seattle to stay with a friend. I spent the next few years drinking heavily, floating from job to job, from apartment to apartment. Eventually I moved back home, forgave my Dad (as much as I could) and got a job I would keep for three years. Meanwhile this entire time dealing with massive bouts of depression, coupled with side effects from abruptly stopping my medication regiment. I met the love of my life, got married, got health insurance, finally got back on medication. I'm 29 years old now, still depressed, still taking medication, getting a divorce that I don't want, still fighting the good fight. I guess my point is this: some people will never understand what you're going through. YOU may never understand. But I get out of bed every day to experience life depsite my disorders. I refuse to let my depression and anxiety and intrusive thoughts stop me from experiencing life. Life is hard, it hurts most of the time, but there is a hell of a lot of good out there too. It's worth getting out of bed. It's worth sticking your middle finger up in the sky and saying "Fuck you, you won't win. Not today." For what it's worth.